


Appetence

by lalazee



Category: Rome
Genre: M/M, Post Season 2, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalazee/pseuds/lalazee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Appetence:  1. Intense desire; strong natural craving; appetite. 2. Chemical attraction or affinity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Appetence

“Fucked her in every hole and then some!” Pullo said with toothy grin and glazed eyes. Despite the raucous din of the taberna, Pullo’s slurred speech boomed between conversations like thunder.   
  
Vorenus did not bother to appear interested as he rubbed his brow and stared into his piss-poor wine. “I will not even begin to entertain what could constitute as ‘and then some’.”   
  
“Oh ho.” Pullo jovially jabbed Vorenus in the side with his elbow. “You haven’t known a good fuck until you’ve buggered her in the –”   
  
“ _Pullo_ .” Vorenus repressed a sigh as he shifted to blandly stare at the titanic drunkard, eye to eye. “Good night.”   
  
Pullo barked a laugh and locked a sweaty arm over Vorenus’ shoulders. The crook of his elbow was damp at Vorenus’ nape, but he didn’t struggle as Pullo leaned in to conk his head against Vorenus’ temple. His breath was hot and stank of dark olives and musky spirits.   
  
“I don’t accept your farewell. Rather, I welcome your buying us another round. What say you, Vorenus? You’re not nearly drunk enough!”   
  
“And you are past drunk and into drowning, fool.” Vorenus shrugged away Pullo’s weight and pressed his hands to the sticky table to stand. “Tomorrow it will be my doorway in which I find you laid out, half-naked and reeking of piss and whores, while my children pass your corpse as if you were a regular fixture in our courtyard.”   
  
“Ah, but you would miss my corpse come to call in the early morn, brother,” Vorenus said as he moved to stand, but only proved to utilise Vorenus as a crutch. He was all hands, weathered and wide-palmed, insistent fingers grappling for purchase on Vorenus’ tunic, his belt.   
  
Vorenus swallowed back the heat creeping up his throat and heaved a sigh. “No. I would not.”   
  
Still, he wrapped an arm around Pullo’s waist and began to lead him from the taberna. At least his threat to leave had induced Pullo into following. Bringing the oaf home to pass out on the floor beside Vorenus’ bed was better than finding him in a nearby alley the next day, robbed blind and bruised from torso to teeth.   
  
And, in truth, Vorenus’ bed had been cold enough for years past, now. Some abstract comfort rose from the snoring beside him. Like having a pet dog.   
  
“Perhaps I should find a dog,” Vorenus said, his tongue loosened enough by the wine of which he had been coerced into partaking.   
  
“Ha!” Pullo ruffled Vorenus’ hair as they stumbled into the darkened street. His weight had Vorenus nearly toppling into the far building. “You hate dogs.”   
  
“And yet –”  _I am somehow fond of you_ , “here you are.”   
  
Pullo’s hearty guffaw echoed off the city walls, deep and warm as rich, mulled wine. The sound brought forth memories of peach trees in bloom, battles won with blood and glory, the night sky spread forth like a thousand welcoming lanterns – and of Titus Pullo beside Vorenus, in every instance.   
  
“If that’s the way of it,” Pullo said with a smile in his tone as they trod forth, “You don’t pet me nearly enough.”   
  
Vorenus’ lips quirked in the shadows. “I would not risk the fleas.”   
  
Pullo snorted another laugh and, quicker than any giant should be on their feet, whirled to push Vorenus against a wall. Before Vorenus could duck from what he knew was coming, a wet kiss was planted directly on his lips. Pullo tasted of earth and the grape, as he ever did, and the curve of his lips burned Vorenus’ even as he pushed Pullo off of him with a grunt.   
  
“Where is a willing whore when in need of one,” Vorenus said under his breath.   
  
“No,” Pullo said, pulling Vorenus back into the street as they headed on their way. His hand was heavy on the back of Vorenus’ neck. “No women for me tonight, Vorenus. Just you and I, as I’d said previous. Between the odd job from Octavian, caring for my whelp, and your arsehole tendencies to work until you collapse, there’s been little time to get properly obliterated together.”   
  
“You have done enough obliteration for the two of us,” Vorenus said – but his friend’s words rang with truth. Some time had passed since they had ventured out together.   
  
There was a rebuttal clear on Pullo’s lips, when they both tripped to a halt before a hunched crone of a woman.   
  
“Your future for a coin,” she said in a voice like crumbled ruins, her milky eyes cast high. “Quickly, before the image fades.”   
  
“Out of the way, hag,” Vorenus said in tandem with Pullo rummaging through his purse, saying, “A reasonable price.”   
  
Vorenus sputtered, dragged a hand down his face as he watched Pullo throw away his miniscule fortune. “Fucking fool,” Vorenus said, even as Pullo crouched to put his ear near the old witch. Pullo was, at times, too good, too trusting – and when it came to his money, he exuded undiluted idiocy.   
  
The coin glinted once in the high, pregnant moonlight, then was secreted away in a pocket where Vorenus was certain there was a treasure of stolen goods. He put a steadying hand on Pullo’s shoulder and left the fingers of his free hand loosely clasped at the dagger sheathed at his belt.   
  
“Tell your tale and be off with you,” Vorenus said lowly.   
  
“Aw,” Pullo said with a fond smile Vorenus’ way. “Ignore the one with the Standard up his arse. Go on, love, tell me my fortune. I’ll be rich won’t, I?”   
  
“Poor as the day you were born,” the hag said, in immediate reply.   
  
“Piss off,” Pullo said, his tone going flat and sulky.   
  
“But,” the witch said quickly, “You will have each other.”   
  
“Eh.” Pullo blinked. “Who?”   
  
“This one.”   
  
Vorenus glowered at the knobbly hand gesturing in his direction. “Brilliant.”   
  
“You will always be enough for the other,” the crone said, trailing off with a wet cough. “As it has been from the start, so shall it remain ‘til the end.”   
  
Feeling Pullo stiffen against him, Vorenus rolled his eyes and huffed. “Do you see what your money gets you, Pullo?” Vorenus gripped Pullo by the wrist and dragged him past the old woman. “Bollocks and bile. Nonsense.”   
  
Pullo’s silence needled beneath Vorenus’ skin, and when he looked to his friend’s profile, it was still as the deep night. Vorenus gritted his teeth and continued on with Pullo in tow. This evening was well past its due completion.   
  
The thick, pitch veil of Nox had settled upon the twisting back alleys as Vorenus navigated them through the shadows. Pullo’s muscled arm over Vorenus’ shoulder was stifling, the clumsy press of their hips, distracting. If nothing else, Pullo had always been distracting.   
  
Now, due to Pullo’s silence, his presence loomed even greater. Vorenus sighed with relief when they found themselves at the rickety wooden arch that led to Vorenus’ small, crumbling courtyard. The servants kept it tidy, as they should, but there were stone slabs in need of repair, and the banister which led up to Vorenus’ quarters had become rickety with age. Vorenus grunted as he and Pullo set upon the steps, their every footfall creaking into the cloak of night.   
  
“Stop your bloody sulking,” Vorenus said gruffly. “You paid the hag and received what you deserved – a farce. And you have only lost a single coin on her. Thank whatever god whose favour you struggle to keep that you were not completely robbed.”   
  
“It’s not the coin,” Pullo said as he stumbled through the doorway and into Vorenus’ home, as comfortable with the surroundings as if they were his own.   
  
“What?”   
  
Vorenus’ brow wrinkled, a deep scowl marring his wine-numbed face. He watched as Pullo tottered towards Vorenus’ bed and dropped to the mat, face first. The frame cracked beneath the sudden weight, and Vorenus found himself surprised that Pullo did not simply break his furniture in two.   
  
“Then what?” Vorenus said again.   
  
“About us,” Pullo said into the sheets, his voice thick with drink and something Vorenus could not categorise.   
  
Vorenus’ throat constricted and his face heated. A stingy breeze swept through his quarters, incense-laden and sticky. “Be silent and sleep,” he said, biting off his words like tough meat.   
  
And because he would not allow Pullo to make himself too comfortable, Vorenus made his way to the bed, sat on the edge, and pushed the great lump of drunken frustration over to the side. “Move,” Vorenus said between his teeth.   
  
Pullo merely grunted and rolled to his back, blinked up at the ceiling. “Do you reckon what she said was in honesty?”   
  
Vorenus twisted his mouth and bent to pull off Pullo’s sandals, then his own.   
  
“Sometimes,” Pullo said quietly, sounding too sober for both of their benefit, “it feels like the truth.”   
  
“It is, in a sense,” Vorenus said carefully, his fingertips digging into his thighs. He remained sitting, staring into the dark. “We are brothers – brothers in arms.”   
  
“In arms.” Pullo’s voice was a rasp, and before Vorenus could pinpoint the meaning behind the tone, the world was tilting. Pullo had sat up, wavered, and yanked Vorenus back down with him.   
  
“ _Wrong arms_ ,” Vorenus said quickly, his heart beating out of his throat, onto his tongue, thudding with the fear that he might finally speak what lurked in his traitorous chest.   
  
But there was Pullo’s easy laugh, his body vibrating with mirth as he stretched out an arm and allowed Vorenus to rest his head on a meaty bicep. “You wear your armour even when you’re not at war, do you know, Vorenus?”   
  
“Do not blather as if you were a poet,” Vorenus said with pinched lungs, skipping stomach. “Stop talking. Go to sleep.”   
  
“Ladies first.”   
  
Vorenus could not muster the strength to debate. He simply grunted and flung an arm over his eyes. Even as the wavering edge of sleep washed over him, he was prickled by Pullo’s words, his demeanour. He had always been a violently affectionate drunk – but never so plainly thoughtful. Disconcerting did not cover the discomfort creeping the length of Vorenus’ spine.   
  
Time strung along, languid and muddled as the warmth of wine and Pullo’s body began to lull Vorenus like a babe. Just as the first clouded sigh of sleep slipped from Vorenus’ lips, a new pair were upon his, soft and damp and silent.   
  
Vorenus froze; held his breath as Pullo hummed a low noise of pleasure, the smooth skin of his lips faintly buzzing with the sound. Shock held Vorenus fast, his arm trapped over his eyes, his muscles stiff and aching. Red bursts splashed behind Vorenus’ eyelids and flared up his cheeks, and – before he could will himself not to – Vorenus sighed against Pullo’s mouth.   
  
Regardless of deep paralysis which seized his body, when Pullo nuzzled his nose against Vorenus’ own, his frayed, stinging nerves soothed, and his veins murmured songs beneath his skin. Vorenus’ fingers twitched once, reaching, pulling back – but it was Pullo who retreated after a single small kiss at the corner of Vorenus’ mouth.   
  
Pullo heaved a huff of breath as he fell back onto the bed once more. “I knew she was right from the moment she spoke, you know.” His voice was rough with the effort to speak.   
  
This was wrong. This was not who Vorenus was – or, rightly, this was not who he wished or allowed himself to be. Vorenus was not a flamboyant actor or a curious, young lad. He had a family, a job, responsibility. A lover –  _Pullo_  – could never be a viable option. Not for a man such as Vorenus.   
  
Vorenus did not reply, and vehemently cursed his own cowardice. The arm on which he laid shifted; just enough so that Vorenus’ fisted hand, the one slung over his clamped-shut eyes, could feel the pad of a thumb sweeping across the calloused contours of his knuckles.   
  
“Poor or not,” Pullo said with a weak breath of a laugh, “This has always been enough.”   
  
"I know,” Vorenus said into the night, into the shadows that held their secrets so well. He swallowed and opened his fist, tangled his fingers once with Pullo’s, then curled them back into the safety of his palm. “Go to sleep, Pullo.”   
  
“As I said – ladies first.”


End file.
